Hospital in Syria’s Deir ez-Zor overloaded with respiratory cases
DEIR EZ-ZOR, Syria (North Press) – A medical official in the Hajin Hospital in the countryside of Deir ez-Zor, eastern Syria, said on Tuesday the hospital can no longer receive patients due to increasing cases of lung diseases, especially among children.
Mashari al-Hazum, the director of the Hajin Hospital, told North Press the children’s department is crowded as it provides services to people in areas extending from the town of al-Busayrah to the town of Baghuz in the eastern countryside of Deir ez-Zor.
The increasing cases of patients are due to the prevalence of lung infections that affect children as a result of climate change and other factors associated with chronic diseases, and weak immunity in children.
The Hajin Hospital in the only hospital in the eastern countryside of Deir ez-Zor that offers its medical services in general and the children’s and women’s department in particular, free of charge, in addition to providing medicines and treatment.
Al-Hazum added there are 36 beds in the children’s department, but they do not cover 25 percent of children cases at the hospital. Some children stay and get treated for more than a week in most cases, which prevent us from receiving new cases of children.
He said they carry out between 15 to 20 caesarean and natural births every day. The majority of newborn children need intensive care and incubators for two or three days. The incubators in the hospital are not sufficient even to treat all babies born in the hospital, according to al-Hazum.
The solution is to expand the hospital and increase children’s beds and incubators, as well as increase the number of doctors and nurses, al-Hazum pointed out.